It's Not A Flu
by L4D2ellis
Summary: It's not a flu. the story of how me and my friends had to fight our way across countries of infected to find a place free of them. my first story, hope people like it. M for language. will upload sixth chapter as soon as its finished.
1. Chapter 1 Every journey has a beginning

Its not a flu. The government fed us lies about how it was just a harmless flu and it would all blow over.  
They neglected to mention how it turned people into bloodthirsty, rage filled monsters whose only intention was  
to continue spreading the infection and killing anyone immune. It spread so quickly no-one saw it coming, one minute  
it was across state,then across town, then it was outside your window,it was coming in and smashing down the  
neighbors door and all you could do was sit in the closet, hoping those awful screams would go away and they wouldn't  
find you.

This is the story of how me and my fellow survivors ended up fighting this infection, and the horrible monsters  
already consumed by it. It tells how we survived long enough to get out and for me to write of our impossible  
situation.

For us it was a regular day at school. I was sat in another boring science lesson with Mr. Trubshore and as usual was  
staring lazily out of the window. let me tell you a bit about me and my friends. My names Sam. I'm 16, have brown hair,  
average height. My best friend Johnny, He's quite tall, also has brown hair, 17. Rachel, brown hair with blond  
highlights, 16 and a half and a bit on the short side. There's kyle, he's 17, average height blond hair and goes  
to a shooting range with his dad sometimes.

We never expected our lives to change as quickly as they did. One minute the teachers droning on about chemicals and  
then the next someone had smashed through the window, screeching and covered in blood. He looked up and his teeth  
were bared, his skin was a sickly grey and his eyes had a dull lifeless look in them. Straight away Mr Trubshore was up shouting "What the hell do you think you're doing young man?"

What we thought he'd do was say "sorry I fell." what we didn't expect was for him to rush over to the teacher and sink  
his teeth into his throat. The girls all screamed and started to panic and some of the boys pulled the maniac off  
the teacher, whose neck was now spurting blood and whose eyes had started to turn glassy. My friends and I watched in horror as the man now spun around and threw off the people holding him and started beating and scratching the people who got too near him.

I watched in terror as the man turned his attention to us and the people he had scratched started to snarl and cough  
blood. Kyle picked up a chair and threw it at the man who stumbled back and fell. "Run or were going to  
die!" I shouted at my friends and remaining classmates. We all dropped our books and pencils and ran for our lives.  
We ended up in the technology block.

Kyle turned to us and said "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know, but its not good!" I shouted."we should find something to defend ourselves with or were going to end  
up like the rest of our class."  
I heard sobbing and saw Rachel curled up in the corner hugging herself tightly.

"Don't worry Rachel, it's going to be fine." Johnny said reassuringly

"But what if one of those things gets in here and we end up like them?" she whimpered " I..I..I don't want to  
be like that!" she suddenly burst into tears again and Johnny stood up, looking at me and Kyle.

"Well what now?" he asked."We've got to get out of here and find our parents."

Kyle suddenly looked at me in horror. "What if this is happening everywhere else?" he almost shouted." We have to find our families!" he winced as someone in the corridor screamed.

"Come on then." I said "Find anything you can use as a weapon and well go find our families." I picked up a  
large hammer, Kyle found a signed baseball bat in the teachers closet, Johnny had an emergency fire axe and Rachel  
had a frying pan from the food technology rooms next door. "Everyone ready? Kyle asked quietly.

"Not really." replied Rachel, she was still silently crying, tears slowly trickling down her face.

Johnny helped me move the desks blocking the door and we both kicked it open, the few people in our vicinity  
immediately snapped their heads up to look at us, blood trailing from their mouths as they snarled. "Everyone  
aim for the head!" I yelled, lifting my hammer and swinging at the nearest infected man's head. It connected with a  
sickening crunch and the man dropped to the floor lifeless, blood seeping from his crushed skull.  
I watched horrified as Johnny swung his axe at a girls neck and almost severed her head. I gasped in horror as my other best friend, Cole, ran up to me and started trying to bite my neck. I gulped, hating myself for what I was about to do and swung my hammer at his skull, crushing his head as he dropped to the floor, lifeless

Rachel was busy screaming and battering any infected that got near with her frying pan while Kyle guarded her back with his mallet which was quite damaging to any infected that attacked.

After a few minutes no-one besides us was still alive so we started heading towards Johnny's house, intent on seeing  
if his family were alive. We encountered very few infected on the streets toward his house,I thought they had run off  
to where the fire alarm was wailing in the distance. We ran into his house and started immediately piling up  
furniture against the doors and windows to stop anything getting in. I stumbled to the sink and emptied my stomach,  
disgusted by the fact I had just killed human beings.

"You okay man?" asked Kyle, patting my shoulder while I rinsed  
my mouth with water.

"We just killed _people_, innocent people, and I just killed one of my best friends, I'm damn well sick." I replied weakly.

"Me too, but think of it like this, if we don't kill them they're gonna kill us."he replied, patting my back.

"Yeah, yeah i guess you're right. thanks." I walked out of the room to find Rachel curled up on the chair and Johnny  
looking carefully out between the barricades in front of the window.

"There are quite a few out there now." He whispered, he stepped away from the window and sat on the sofa with his head in his hands.

Suddenly we heard a commotion on the streets and a boy shouting "For god's sake someone help me!"

We all grabbed our weapons and started pulling apart the barricade in front of the door, seeing a boy about our age trying to fend off  
the infected with a baseball bat and a kitchen knife. He was slowly being dragged to the floor so we ran from our  
safe house towards him, me shouting "Oi you pricks! try us on for size!" The majority of the infected looked at us  
before screeching and sprinting at us. We raised our weapons and started bludgeoning them to death, Johnny slicing  
any that got near. I ran to the boy when it was clear and said "Come on get in the house its safe there."

We all got in the house and rebuilt the barricades and made sure they were secure before helping the boy on to the  
sofa where he sat down heavily and sighed "I hate those things." He wore a black sweatshirt, some blue jeans with  
rips in them and some blue vans on his feet.

"So whats your name and how did you get here?" I asked him. He looked at me and I took in his features, short brown hair, blue eyes and the hint of shadows under his eyes.

"The names Brad, I came from my friends house, we were running away from those things when he...he uh.." he looked  
down, a hint of sadness in his eyes.

"What happened?" asked Rachel quietly, avoiding eye contact.

"He got infected and I bashed in his skull with this bat." Brad said bluntly, holding up said object. He sighed and leant back into the sofa, rubbing his face in an effort to get rid of the dirt and blood on it.

"So does anyone know what we should do now?" I asked the room full of people.

"I heard there was an evacuation further across town in the mall." said Brad, using his sleeve to wipe blood off  
his baseball bat.

"OK then, I think we should stay here tonight and then head there tomorrow." I said "We'll have to take turns watching the door though." I sighed heavily, "I'll go first, you guys get some rest." I slumped into the chair nearest the door holding my new found shovel from the cupboard under the stairs. I sat there, wondering what was happening elsewhere, who else was surviving and most importantly what was happening to my family? After three hours of watching an unmoving door, I got up and woke Kyle for a shift. I plodded to the spare bedroom and laid down, my head hit the pillow and I was asleep in seconds.

When I woke in the morning I smelt bacon and eggs and thought, I wonder what else mums cooking? then I realised where  
I was and sighed, yawned and stretched. I went through to the kitchen and saw Kyle and Rachel cooking while Brad and  
Johnny were discussing what our plan of action was to get to the mall across town. After breakfast we wrote messages on the walls in case our families saw them. Then we all picked up some first aid kits from the closet and some medicine along with some kitchen knives to use as weapons or tools.

"Well then, lets go kick some zombie ass!"  
I said, kicking the door open and lifting my shovel up. The infected all along the street snapped their heads up  
to see who was making the noise, seeing survivors they screamed and ran mindlessly towards us, only to be beaten to  
death or sliced by Johnny's axe.

We dispatched them all and came out with only a few scratches, silently thankful that we all appeared to be immune. We headed north across town, dispatching any infected that appeared. Halfway there we saw a figure walking toward us, he didn't appear to be infected as he wasn't charging at us, limbs flailing and shouting gibberish.

"Hey there!" he shouted "Are you survivors?"

"Yeah we are, we're heading to the evac center at the mall!" I shouted back. We walked up to him and I shook his hand  
noticing he had lots of weapons.

"Names Ted, glad to meet ya." he spoke in a gruff voice, he sounded like a soldier  
or something. "If none of you mind Ive got a couple extra weapons I can't carry, you can have 'em." he handed me a  
long case and when I pulled the handle a shiny katana blade came out, glistening in the glare of the sun. He handed  
both Kyle and Rachel axes and finally handed Johnny a colt M1911 pistol along with some clips.

"Thanks man these will really come in handy" said Johnny. he put the safety on the gun and slipped it into his pocket.

"So why are you out here and not going for evac?" I asked.

"Well I'm trying to find as many survivors as I can before the choppers get here." he replied, looking us all up and down, he said "How long have you been in those clothes?"

"Since yesterday." said Kyle, looking in disgust at the blood all over his sweatshirt.

"Well come on, there's tons of clothes at the mall." Laughed Ted, walking and slinging a shotgun over his shoulder. We got to the mall and it was full of survivors and people with guns, swords and axes. "see that big red door over there?" inquired Ted, pointing off to our left, at a big steel door completely covered in red.

"Yeah what about it?" I asked back.

"That's a safe house. there are lots in all the countries now since the government thought they would keep us safe, they do bloody well though, they'll even keep out a tank."

"Whats a tank?" asked Kyle, he looked perplexed.

"You'll find out soon enough kid." replied Ted, he then walked off to talk to some man with a sniper rifle.

As I was walking towards a sign that said toilets, Noticed some people gathered around a large notebook and mumbling to each other. I picked it up and read the cover, Special Infected. Intrigued, I opened it and was met with a picture of an obese man labeled, _the Boomer. This strain of the virus affects anyone not immune who has a weight problem. This infected has been mutated by the virus to produce green bile which when in contact with survivors__, will attract any infected within a mile to attack. He is easy to spot due to the large boils and pustules covering his body, he also gurgles and belches due to the bile his body is producing. However, they are extremely weak and anything sharp enough, even hard rain, will kill __them, causing them to explode, do not attack from up close. _

The next page had a picture of a man with tumors and massive appendages on his face. He appeared to be emitting smoke. _The Smoker. This strain of the virus affects people who have nicotine in their blood. This infected has been mutated so that __his intestines hang from his mouth, which he uses like a tongue to ensnare survivors and drag them through obstacles __or back to himself where he will proceed to claw them to death until he dies or the survivor is released or dead. He makes telltale coughing noises when near survivors and is quite hard to find usually. He gets his name from the fact that he releases a cloud of __smoke upon death and because of the small spores on his body that emit smoke as he moves around._

The next picture was a man crouched down in a blue hoodie, snarling_. The Hunter. Anyone healthy enough to be a runner or athlete can be affected by this strain. A very athletic __infected, the hunter can jump up to 30 feet in the air and not be injured. He uses his immense speed and agility to __pounce survivors and rip them to shreds with his razor sharp claws. He/she appears to have clawed their own eyes out when infected, preferring to screech and use echo location to find prey. They growl when preparing to pounce, making their presence known as soon as they are close._

The next was a massive thing covered in muscle, only the upper part of his face was not immersed in muscle. _The Tank. Bodybuilders and muscular people are affected by this strain. It is possibly the most dangerous infected and the strongest, he will charge survivors until he is killed, __his muscles make him almost bullet proof and able to kill untrained survivors instantly. Because his arms and torso have enlarged but his legs haven't, he walks on his knuckles like a gorilla. If you encounter one, split __up and fire at it continuously, be careful as he can and will throw anything he can get his hands on at survivors. He roars and the ground will shake when he is near, making it impossible not to know where he is._

The last picture was a girl with gray skin sitting on the floor, with hands like knives_. The Witch. DO NOT STARTLE HER. Girls or women (no male cases have been seen) who are affected by this strain, will retain their memories of the past and cry remorsefully for the deaths of everyone she knew and the death happening around her. she is __unbelievably fast and strong and is capable of killing a person in seconds, she is startled by light, loud noises and __people getting too close to her. Some cases have been reported of the witch walking around and crying, try to avoid one as much as possible._

I showed the notebook to my friends who all decided to remember these infected in case we ran into any. We found out there were showers and fresh clothes for all of us, so after we all got cleaned up we were blood and dirt free. I was dressed in black jeans, an AC/DC t-shirt and a black hoodie along with some black vans. I like black, but I'm not some emo kid or anything.

Johnny was wearing: blue jeans, a red t-shirt and a dark blue jumper. He also had a holster on his thigh for the pistol Ted gave him.

Kyle came out wearing a camo army type suit saying it was "quite comfortable on certain areas". Johnny rolled his eyes while I laughed.

Rachel appeared and all the men turned to look at her, she had her long hair tied up in a ponytail, wore a black tank top, some jeans and a pink zip up hoodie.

"Wow someone call the fire brigade cos girl you look hot!" Kyle whistled and looked her up and down appreciatively.

Rachel blushed and looked at her feet, giggling as she did. "thank you very much." she smiled at Kyle brightly.

We all picked our weapons back up and were walking over to Ted when a woman screamed "Get off! someone help! hes trying to bite..." then we heard a loud snarl and everyone panicked, trying to get away from the now infected man and woman. As we stood there shocked we saw them both start attacking people. within a minute or so, half the place was infected.

"I guess not many people are immune then!" I shouted at my teammates. the rest of the survivors rushed to the safe house and slammed the door right before the first infected slammed into it, screeching and snarling, trying to reach through the bars.

I looked around and saw all my friends, including Brad and Ted, as well as about 35 other survivors.  
"OK everyone listen up!" shouted Ted. "Everyone get a weapon, because were gonna have to fight our way out of here!" Immediately all the remaining survivors grabbed guns, bats, swords, axes and whatever weapons they could find.

As for my team, I was equipped with: an M-16 assault rifle, two p220 pistols, a pipe bomb and the katana Ted gave me.

Rachel held an m4a1 rifle and two Beretta m9 pistols along with a Molotov.

Kyle had a Dragunov sniper rifle, two USP pistols, a pipe bomb and somehow he had found a flamethrower!

Johnny was equipped with a fire axe, a sawn off shotgun, a Single action army revolver and a bottle of green fluid.

"Right then!" shouted Ted, everyone turning to face him. "We need to call a chopper, and we can do that by going to the music stores and playing the loudest thing you can find! The noise will attract zombies, but also the chopper!"

"Lets do this thing!" I yelled, eager to kill some zombies. Ted unhooked the bar from the safe room door and started firing at the infected outside. we all charged outside, firing and slashing, or in Kyles case, burning any infected in our path. Me and Johnny Sprinted to the CD store and I grabbed the first album I could reach. It was AC/DC Power-age. "Alright! lets fucking do this!" I yelled, placing the CD in a disc player and turning the volume right up.

The first song wasn't my favourite so I skipped to Riff Raff and started singing along while firing at the infected. One of the people next to me was grabbed by what could only be a smokers tongue and was dragged into the middle of the horde, screaming as he was torn apart. I heard a screech and a hunter jumped on a woman trying to run away, tearing out her throat and seeming to relish in the blood. A boomer waddled into the middle and threw up all over a man with an axe, immediately, all the infected peoples attention was diverted to him and they proceeded to tear him apart, blood and internal organs flying everywhere.

I heard a thunderous roar and turned to see a tank smash through the doors of the mall, crushing anything in his way, immune and infected alike. "Guys run!" I shouted to my friends, unloading my M-16 into the tank and pulling out my katana.

"Don't worry I got it!" shouted Brad running toward the tank, when a hunter pounced and knocked him sideways, slicing him open from ribs to waist. The tank smashed him against the wall as the chopper arrived and quickly the rest of the survivors ran straight to it and jumped in, there were only about 20 of us left now. I watched through the window as Brad pulled the pin off a grenade and ran into the tank and the middle of the horde.

"NO!" screamed Rachel, shooting into the horde from the chopper.

"Forget it kid, he's gone." said Ted, we heard the explosion and watched bodies and bits of tank fly everywhere.  
Rachel began to sob as we flew further away from the mall, further away from my home. I still wanted to know what happened to my parents, but if I allowed the thoughts to consume me, I would die very quickly.


	2. Chapter 2 New Faces

Chapter 2.

"We're almost at the edge of the city." informed Ted, looking out the window of the chopper as we flew over the city and the countless infected roaming through it. We saw the odd tank but were too high for it to throw anything at us.

"So is there a safe zone at the edge of the city?" I asked the pilot.

"Yeah the military built a massive fortress and are sheltering the survivors there, there are quite a lot there now."  
We flew in silence for a few minutes, then I heard coughing and retching and turned to see a middle aged man spewing blood onto the floor of the chopper.

"Shit! He's infected!" shouted johnny, running to tell the pilot as the man's teeth clamped down on the person next to him.

"Kill him quick!" screamed Rachel cowering in the corner, hands over her face. I pulled out my M-16 and shot the infected people and ran to the cockpit, where the pilot was gripping a bleeding arm and Johnny was shoving the dead man out of the spare seat, grabbing the controls to try and even out the now shaking chopper. The pilot pulled a pistol from his belt and looked at me saying,

"Well I'm screwed since I'm not immune, you should be able to land this thing, its not that hard, do it and get to Mercy hospital, it's where the safe zone is, don't worry about me." he raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, blood spraying out the side of his head.

"Johnny I hope you can land this!" shouted Kyle.

"Well we're about to find out!" he shouted back. "Hold on to something, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!"

The helicopter spun round uncontrollably and everyone grabbed hold of something, most people screaming and Kyle for some reason shouting "Woo!". We sank lower towards the ground and then smashed into the middle of the street, the rotors snapping against buildings and people being pierced by shards of glass.

When I got up and looked around only me, Ted, Rachel, Johnny and Kyle were still alive. The rest of the survivors bodies were all either mangled beyond recognition by glass or had fallen and been crushed by pieces of helicopter and smashing into cars. Rachel was whimpering in pain and holding her wrist, which seemed to be pointing the wrong way.

"OK, Rachel's wrist is broken so we need to find a safe-house for the night and quickly before the infected show up." Explained Ted, who had a nasty gash on the side of his face from which blood was dripping onto the pavement below.

"OK lets go then, quickly." Replied Kyle, looking worriedly at Rachel, as if she might break into pieces any minute.

We all salvaged our weapons from the wreckage and dispatched the few infected that had shown up. "There's an arrow on the wall over there." I pointed out the wall with a big red arrow pointing down an alleyway. "That must be the safe house."

"Well what are we waiting for?" asked Kyle. "Lets go!" We moved as fast as we could towards the safe house, but about halfway there we heard a screech and I turned to see a hunter pounce on Ted. I ran up and kicked it in the side of the head, dislodging it and allowing Ted to get up. I raised my rifle and put three bullets in its head before turning and making sure Ted was OK.

"Thanks kid, good shot too." Grinned Ted as he dusted himself off and we continued to move toward the safe house. We stumbled in and Ted shut the door and barred it with a heavy metal pole. "Alright, we should be safe here for the night, but first lets get some food, I'm starved!" laughed Ted, walking into the kitchen of the safe house and opening the still working fridge. After a feast of chocolate and toast with some water, we all pulled out a sleeping bag from the corner of the room, curling up in them and drifting off to sleep.

I woke in the morning to Ted shaking me and saying "Come on kid we need to get moving."

"Oh come on, ten more minutes." I pleaded, pulling the sleeping bag back over my head.

"No, up now." he pulled the bag off my head and I was forced to get up and found the others eating cereal. There was an untouched bowl in front of a chair, so I assumed it was mine and started eating.

"OK, I read some of the graffiti on the walls and apparently there's another evac center up north." informed Johnny.

"Yeah cos the last one was a massive success wasnt it?" I retorted sarcastically.

"Well you can stay here then while we get rescued." snapped Rachel, giving me an evil look over her bowl of cereal.

"Alright then, dont eat me!" I held up my hands in mock fear and then ducked the spoon that was thrown at me.

"Hey guys come here this is amazing!" Shouted Kyle from the back room he was investigating.

I walked into the room and my jaw dropped. The room was full of weapons. From pistols to RPGs to chainsaws.

"Guys, give me a few minutes, I'm gonna make love to this room." grinned Kyle, looking in wonderment at the room.

"Not if I do first." I grinned back, picking up a katana and slicing the air around me.

"OK then, lets restock on ammo and grab any new guns if you want em'" Ted announced to the room. Everyone grabbed as much pipe bombs, Molotov's, pistols and ammo as they could carry, I picked up an M21 sniper rifle along with lots of clips for my M-16 and a Spas-12 shotgun along with an extra two M9 pistols, while Ted, Rachel and Johnny chose to keep their weapons. Kyle came out covered in guns, until Ted made him put most of them back.

"Come on man, its not like we aren't gonna need em'" He pleaded.

"No! What if more survivors come here?" Ted retorted. "We need to leave them in case more survivors come here."

"Fine, but if we die cos we didn't have enough guns, I will kill you in the afterlife."  
I laughed as Kyle continued to whine as we prepared ourselves, each picking up a med kit, Rachel already having a splint on her wrist.

"Come on then!" I shouted as we pushed the door open and began slaughtering the infected in the immediate vicinity. We continued to head north, encountering few infected but the odd boomer, smoker or hunter. We were wandering along when we heard a man with a heavy south accent screaming.

"Shit! Smokers got me!"

I ran ahead of the others and saw a man in a yellow t-shirt and overalls knotted around his waist being dragged away by a long, purple, slimy tongue. I pulled out my M21 and looked down the scope, finding the smoker, I put a bullet through it's skull and watched as it died, releasing a cloud of smoke. I ran up to him and helped pull the slimy appendage off from around his chest, helping him stand up and asked "What are you doing out here on your own, with no weapons?"

"Well ah was with some other people, but a massive horde and a tank showed up and they told me to leave them behind..." he trailed off into silence, looking at his feet.

"Sorry to hear that." I replied, patting him on the back."Well I'm Sam, this is Rachel, Johnny,Kyle and the old guy is Ted." I pointed to each person and Ted glared at me when I called him old.

"Mah names Ellis, some people call me El but ah prefer Ellis cos El kinda sounds like a girls name, but if you'd rather call me El, well I guess you can."

"Nice to meet you, shame it's not under better circumstances, here take this." I shook his hand before handing him the Spas-12 auto shotgun and pair of M9 pistols I'd grabbed earlier. "Thanks very much!" he smiled happily, taking the guns and checking the ammo for them.

"We're all heading up north, apparently there's an evac center there, you wanna come?" asked Johnny.

"Yeah OK then." Replied Ellis, pulling a blue cap out of his overalls pocket and putting it on his messy brown hair.

We continued to walk north with Ted taking point and making sure we were heading in the right direction. Soon we came to a highway that was piled up with cars and trucks as far down as we could see.

"Damn that's a lot of cars!" Whooped Ellis."It reminds me of this one time my buddy Keith..." he proceeded to ramble on for five minutes about what Keith did with a goose, a small car and a bottle of syrup.

"Well we cant drive em' so we're gonna have to climb over em' and try not to set off any alarms." stated Ted.

"Cool, this should be fun." I smirked and looked at Ellis before shouting "Last one to the end is boomer food!" I jumped on the first car and glanced behind, seeing Ellis, Johnny and Kyle following me, Rachel and Ted were shaking their heads and muttering to each other. I climbed on to the roof of a truck and jumped to the next car, denting the bonnet. I threw myself onto the back of a truck and pulled myself up before jumping down to the next car.

I reached the end of the highway in about twenty minutes, panting and covered in sweat. Soon after that, Ellis jumped off of the last car in front of me, shortly followed by Johnny and then Kyle. We sat around for about ten minutes, waiting for Ted and Rachel to join us.

Ellis sat quietly for a few minutes before suddenly exclaiming "I remember this one time, my buddy Keith tried to deep fry a turkey, third degree burns over ninety percent of his body! The doctor called like, other doctors up to look at 'im and stuff cos he'd never seen actual burns on top of existing burns."

"Ellis?" I asked "How the hell is Keith alive after this stuff you've told us he's done?"

"Well the doctors say it's a miracle he's still alive so I'm not really sure."

"When we get out of here I want to meet this Keith." laughed Kyle, picking pieces of grass from the side of the road. We sat in silence for a few seconds then we heard rustling from the bush to our left. I raised my rifle and slowly crept towards it, hearing the others following me with their guns raised.

Suddenly Rachel burst out screaming "Roar I'm a tank!" with Ted right behind her. We all jumped and then fell over laughing.

"You're lucky the safety was on Rachel!" I laughed, putting my rifle away as she giggled at everyones reactions.

"Guys!" shouted Johnny "Look at that!" we looked to where he was pointing and saw searchlights in the distance, along with a few helicopters circling the area. Slightly behind them was Mercy hospital, the name of the hospital in bright green lights on the top floor.

"Come on let's go!" Shouted Kyle running forward but looking behind at us as we got up.

"Kyle stop!" I shouted but it was too late, he ran straight into a red car, the alarm suddenly blaring out.

"You idiot!" Roared Ted, snapping his head round when he heard a collective cry a little further down the road.

"Damn it! Horde!" shouted Ellis cocking his guns like the rest of us as we prepared to fight them off. They burst over the tops of the cars, snarling and flailing their arms and legs about. There was at least a hundred of them! I started yelling as I began firing into the middle of them, barely making a dent in the damn things.

Ellis dropped to his knees and began blasting the kneecaps of the infected with his shotgun, creating a domino effect. Kyle laughed as he burnt them with his flamethrower.

Johnny was using his revolver to fire well placed shots into the zombies heads.

Ted and Rachel were shooting whatever was closest to them. Eventually we all ran out of ammo and as we were reloading, the rest of the horde reached us and began battering us, punching and scratching at anyone they could reach.

"OK, fuck this!" I shouted, pulling out a pipe bomb, pressing the little red button and throwing it down the street, away from us. The majority of the infected rushed after the shrill beeping it made while we dealt with the few that were left. There was an explosion and a red mist and limbs went flying everywhere.

"Yeah baby get some!" I shouted, high fiving Ellis and Johnny while the others looked around to make sure nothing was left.

"Well I'm glad that's over." Rachel sighed, "At least there were no spec-" she was cut off by the shriek of a hunter as it landed on me and started tearing at my shirt, it's claws ripping through my flesh until Johnny's revolver put a bullet through it's head. I stood up and groaned in pain, looking at my torn shirt and the blood running from my stomach because of the claw marks.

"Here I'll patch that up for you." Ted said nicely, pulling his first aid kit off his back and pulling out some bandages and disinfectant. After I was patched up we continued to head towards the searchlights, we came across a safe room and Ellis told us this was where he had stayed a few days ago.

"It has a working shower and everything." He told us. Rachel ran straight into the bathroom and refused to give anyone the shower for about forty minutes. When she finally came out, I ran straight in and spent twenty minutes getting rid of all the dirt and blood that I was covered in. Once we had all had showers and some food, we sat down and started talking about the infection.

"I heard that it mutates all the time and that's why they cant find a cure yet." I informed the room.

"Yeah but how do you explain the fact that we're immune?" asked Kyle.

"Well, we might not all be immune." stated Ted, picking beans out of his teeth.

"What do you mean?" Rachel asked quickly.

"Well." sighed Ted. "Some people are immune, some aren't, but then there are carriers. Those are the people who are immune but also have the infection so they could transmit it to people who aren't immune."

"There's something I wanna know." Piped up Johnny. "How did this infection start in the first place?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but you've heard of CEDA, the civil defence and emergency agency right?" Inquired Ted.

"Yeah what about them?" Replied Johnny, looking confusedly at Ted.

"The man who's in charge of them, his name's Nathan Daubney, but the workers call him The Director." explained Ted.  
"Anyway, they say he was working on a cure for cancer or something, because he wanted to be the smartest, richest man alive. But it backfired and he created Green flu. No-one knows how, but it mutates daily, one day it's airborne, the next it's not. that's why only immune people and carriers aren't infected. Because if you're not immune, you'll breathe it in and get infected. And different people are affected by different strains."

"So basically, if you aren't immune or a carrier you're fucked, and if you are immune or a carrier, you're fucked cos you have to deal with the poor souls who arent?" I stated.

"Pretty much." agreed Ted, yawning and stretching his arms."Well, I'm going to bed, wake me up if you find a cure." He stood up and walked over to one of the sleeping bags in the corner, getting into it and settling down.

"Yeah, I think I'm going to bed too guys." Yawned kyle. "See you in the morning beautiful." he winked at Rachel, who blushed and retreated to her own sleeping bag.

"Night guys." I mumbled as I sleepily crawled into my own sleeping bag and fell asleep in seconds.


	3. Chapter 3 New Places

Chapter 3

After we had eaten in the morning we all had another shower, Rachel whining about how long it might be before we get another chance. I winced as I bent down to grab my backpack, that hunter, along with the horde Kyle had summoned, got me good. We crept out of the door and I stealthily killed the few infected about with my Katana. I sheathed it and caught up to the others and we continued to head north.

"We're gettin' close guys." Ellis Grinned excitedly, gesturing towards how close the hospital with the searchlights was.

"So, this is boring." I yawned, there had been no infected around for miles. "To make it fun how about we have a competition, whoever kills the most infected by the time we get to the hospital gets to be named zombie killing machine?"

"Hell yeah!" shouted Johnny, Kyle and Ellis in unison.

"Alright then, common infected are one point, specials are fifteen, and witches and tanks are one hundred and fifty!

"Bring it on!" shouted Ellis. We all began our contest, running around like maniacs, trying to find any infected we could. Ellis was smug after he killed a boomer until a smoker grabbed him and I sliced its head off, putting me in the lead again.

"Well Ellis, I think I'm in the lead and on my way to becom- SHIT TANK!" I yelled as loud as I could, as the gargantuan beast stampeded toward us, occasionally hurling slabs of concrete. it charged towards us and headed straight for me as I was reloading.

Then out of nowhere I heard. "Back off boys, this ones mine!" Rachel ran around the beast and launched herself onto it's back. it didn't register her existence until she brought the barrel of a shotgun to it's field of vision. It roared and tried to reach back to rip her from its back but she emptied the entire clip of her gun into its face. it groaned then slumped to the floor, dead. Rachel jumped off and began reloading her shotgun before handing it back to Ted while the rest of us stared, dumbfounded, at the corpse of the tank.

"I believe that puts me in the lead Sam." Rachel grinned at me before turning and continuing to walk toward the hospital. I watched after her, mouth agape in stunned silence. We reached the hospital just before sunset, it was at least thirteen stories high. There was a great deal of blood spattered on the glass front doors.

"So this is Mercy hospital?" asked Ted, looking around at the corpses of infected and a few survivors.

"Who cares? If it means we can get out of here, it could be full of tanks." replied Johnny. We walked to the front desk and looked at the big message written on the wall behind it, it read:

"Any survivors, we had to retreat to another safe zone, if you are reading this, press the red button on the wall and defend yourselves until the chopper arrives."

"Well that doesn't sound good." I stated, re-reading the message.

"We've still gotta do it if we wanna get out." replied Ted. "Kyle gimme your flamethrower, I'll need it more than you. You can move faster than me, so if there's loads of infected I'll be able to protect my slow moving ass with it."

"What? Oh come on man I love this thing." Kyle practically hugged the flamethrower to his chest before reluctantly handing it over to Ted. we all grabbed some ammo off the desk, already each having a med-kit and pipe bombs etc.

"Oh Ted, you never told us what this is." Said Johnny, holding up his tube of green liquid.

"It's boomer bile, if you throw it, it'll attract the zombies just the same as if you'd been puked on."

"Should come in handy then." laughed Johnny, tucking it back into his pocket.

We all took a few hours to sit down, eat and rest to gather our strength for the inevitable hordes that would come when we pressed the big red button.

After the rest, I walked up to the wall and pressed the button, immediately, a very loud alarm began to wail and the searchlights started up, and of course, the massive outcry of a horde.

"Here they come!" shouted Ellis, hefting his gun up to his shoulder.

I lifted up my M-16 and cocked it, ready and eager to shoot some zombies. They burst through the doors, screeching and dripping blood everywhere. We all began to fire into the horde, there were at least three hundred of the damn things. I fired relentlessly until my clip was empty.

I reloaded and heard the hacking cough of a smoker. I saw it limp into the building and it screamed before it's tongue flew from it's mouth and latched onto the nearest survivor.

"Help!" I heard Rachel scream and saw her being dragged through the horde, I pulled out my M21 and shot the smoker through its skull, then I raced to get to Rachel, slicing any infected with my katana. I pulled her up, coughing and ignoring the punches and scratches from the infected and ran with her back to the others. Johnny was reloading his sawn off shotgun while Ted used the flamethrower to burn the ones in front.

The screech of a hunter rang out and it landed on kyle, it started to lift its claw to slice his throat but Rachel shot it in the face, blood and brain matter splattering against the floor among the rest of the dead. I heard a gurgle and turned to see a boomer vomit all over Johnny and then heard another cry as the hordes attention was attracted to Johnny.

We all took positions around him and held off the horde while he cleaned the bile from his eyes.

"Fat bastard." grumbled Johnny, reloading his gun. I carried on slashing limbs and heads off of bodies while the others carried on firing until we heard the familiar whirl of a helicopter and began to push towards the front doors, no-one questioning why it had gotten here so quickly.

"Chase this bitches!" shouted Johnny, throwing his bile jar over his shoulder and watching as all the infected turned to attack the green mist hanging in the air.

"Quick! Get on the chopper!" I shouted, shooting and running backwards toward the chopper. As we jumped on I heard a deafening collective roar and looked to the road where I saw not one, but FIVE tanks charging towards us. Then I watched in horror as Ted hopped out of the chopper and began walking towards them. "TED NO!" screamed Rachel, trying to jump out after him until Kyle held her back while she clawed at him, sobbing, screaming and trying to get out of his grip.

"Ted come back!" I yelled. He turned to us and shouted:

"Go boy! Ive done my job. You take care of Rachel ya hear? You'll never get away with these bastards comin' after ya anyway!"" He lifted his hand in a salute. I lifted my hand weakly and saluted back, feeling tears sting my eyes. The last thing I saw before the hospital obstructed my view as we took off was Ted unleashing blazing fire onto the tanks until one of them raised a massive fist and crushed him into the ground. We all sat in shock for an hour until I realised we weren't landing.

I walked up to the cockpit and asked the pilot "Where are we going? I thought you said there was another safe zone?"

" There was. It got overrun just before you called me, that's why I got there so quickly. Now we're going to England." he said simply, turning back to look at the country rolling beneath us as we headed toward the sea, toward England. The majority of the way there was spent comforting Rachel, who had been hit hardest by Teds death. We all took it in turns to go up, wrap an arm around her and tell her it was going to be OK. We all talked about how we'd likely be dead if we hadn't met him and in his name I decided to keep the katana he'd given me, no matter what, that made Rachel smile. When I realised we were over land again (we'd been asleep for some time) I asked the pilot where we were.

"Just over Norwich city." he called to us from the cockpit. "Theres a safe zone in the castle there, most of England is infected but for some reason, less people are immune so there are millions of the infected over here, but there's less people altogether."

"How long till we get there?" asked Ellis, stretching his arms and yawning.

"Well were about over a village called Spixworth so I'd say... about ten to fifteen minutes." He turned to look at us and smiled at Rachel, who was still lightly sobbing.

"FUCK LOOK OUT!" I screamed at the pilot as a car came flying towards the chopper,obviously thrown by a tank who saw us and decided it wanted to kill us. He tried to swerve but it hit the tail rotor instead.

"Damn it! Not again!" shouted Johnny, once again rushing to help the pilot with the controls. I saw a big open field next to a pub and shouted to the pilot,

"Land there, it's open so we wont hit anything!" He heard me and started to aim the now falling chopper towards the field. We all hung on for dear life as we started to sink lower towards the ground. "If I die, it's gonna be by a tank's fist, not a fucking helicopter crash!" I shouted, shaking with the motion of the chopper and slightly from fear. I noticed Teds' katana starting to slide towards the open door and I dived to grab it, clutching it and it's sheath to my chest, not wanting to lose it. The land came up faster than I expected and I braced myself as the chopper started to slide across the field, stopping by the edge of it next to the road.

"Everyone Ok?" asked Kyle, checking we still had our weapons and that nothing had fallen out.

"Yeah I think so, a bit shaken and bruised but I think were OK." replied Johnny, helping the pilot up and handing him a pistol.

"Well good, cos' a fuck ton of zombies are about to show up judging by the sound of that crash." stated Kyle, cocking his gun like the rest of us. I raised my katana as the first cry of a horde sounded. Infected burst out of the trees of the forest behind us.

I immediately whirled around, raising my sword and preparing for the ones my friends couldnt shoot down to reach me. As the first infected, a man in a tattered suit now covered in blood and boomer bile, lifted his arm to scratch at me, I sliced off his head and wiped away the blood that splattered my face. I continued to slash at any infected near enough until a boomer came up behind us and puked all over me and Johnny.

"Shit! Crap in my eyes!" I shouted, desperately rubbing my eyes to get rid of the bile as I heard the roar of a second horde. They came sprinting towards us from the street behind us. I watched as Rachel pulled a Molotov from her backpack and threw it straightinto the path of the second horde so they burned whilst we finished off the stragglers from the first. As the second horde burned, I heard the shriek of a hunter and watched as it launched itself onto the pilot and started to tear at his clothes. Luckily, I was close to him and I shoved my blade through its head with a slight squishing noise and watched it drop to the floor, dead.

"Thanks." Choked out the pilot, wincing as he stood up and clutched his torn stomach in pain. I wiped my blade on the grass and sheathed it. Suddenly a tank burst out of the middle of the still flaming second horde, punching the common infected out of the way as it stampeded towards us. Then I heard the sound of a very heavy machine gun and turned to see a man in the pub window behind us, yelling and firing at the tank, killing it in seconds.

"Quick! In here!" He shouted, indicating towards the front doors of the pub. We all limped towards the pub, dispatching any infected that were left. As we neared the door, the cough of a smoker rang out and I saw Johnny start to get dragged away by a long slimy tongue.

"Guys! A little help!" He yelled as Kyle took aim and shot the smoker, allowing Johnny to get up and run with us the remaining few feet to the door of the pub. As we got to it, the door flew open, revealing a man in a green army uniform, a white beard covering his lower face, the only indication he had a mouth was the cigarette poking out of it. "Get in, names Frank." He said gruffly, ushering us in and bolting the door once we were. "What the hell happened?" he asked in a rough British accent.

"We came from America, this shits happening there too and we're heading to the city, but a tank threw a car at us and we crashed here." Explained the pilot, still clutching his stomach in pain.

"Here, let me patch that up for you." Said Frank, pulling out a health pack from a cupboard and starting to heal the pilot.

"Thanks for helping us man." Kyle thanked the old man who was sewing up the pilots wounds. "No problem." he said simply, putting the health kit back and picking up an AK-47 rifle and walking back to the window, looking out between the boards.

"None there at the minute, but sooner or later the shit's gonna hit the fan." Ted spoke in a low voice, as if he didn't want anyone else to hear. "Well come on then." he waved us over to him. "I assume you'll want to sleep and shower?"

"You have a working shower?" asked Rachel excitedly,dry tear tracks still on her cheeks.

"Course." he said grouchily."Can't bloody well have an apocalypse if you're just covered in blood and boomer bile can ya?"

"We appreciate the help and everything Frank." I smiled "But do you know a way to get to the castle from here?"

"Yeah, I've got a radio that's in contact with the castle, I'll let 'em know you're here later." he slouched away, probably to go to his own bed. We all showered and had some food, Frank had tons stored in his fortress type house. Afterwards we all found beds in a room and proceeded to lay down ready for a decent nights sleep.

"So... he seems nice, a bit grouchy, but nice." Yawned Kyle.

"Yeah." I agreed. "Wonder if he's gonna come with us to this safe zone?"

"Hope he brings his guns if he does, seriously, did you see that mountedone? He must've killed that tank in about three seconds!" Kyle exclaimed.

"Kyle, I don't think he'd be able to carry that all the way to the castle." Laughed the former chopper pilot, whose name we had learned was Ricky, he'd volunteered to help survivors escape the infected areas since he had chopper training and decided to definitely join the military defences when he'd watched his parents get crushed by a tank.

"Well I remember the time my buddy Keith tried to carry a ride on lawnmower across town!" grinned Ellis. "He got about halfway there and said 'what if I ride it there?' so he gets on it, but he don' realise how powerful it is and he drives over about twenty peoples lawns and a coupl'a cats before he manages to stop the damn thing! Then ah got one, an we thought, what if we make 'em into bumper cars? But then he gets mower blade wounds over ninety percent of his body. Ah didn't run 'im over, he somehow fell under his own!" Ellis laughed then smiled, obviously remembering what he had just told us.

"Thats a...lovely story." smiled Rachel. We all laughed, feeling some of the stress lifting, but not all, not until we were out of this crap. We all settled down to sleep for the night, hoping Frank's pub would keep us safe.

_I was in the middle of a horde, being slashed and bitten, screaming for help until I saw my friends dead, mangled corpses on the floor. I screamed and tried to run away but I couldn't move, I was being held by a smokers tongue that belonged to Frank. A tank was waiting in the corner of my vision, and I was shocked to find it was Ted. I kept looking and with horror realised my parents were part of the horde. I screamed at them to stop, but they showed no life in their cold grey eyes. I had to endure the attacks of the horde, all the time being forced to look at my friends bodies until I finally fell into unconsciousness_...

I jerked awake, covered in sweat and breathing heavily. I looked around and saw my friends were all still asleep. I sighed, realising it was just a bad dream, I lay back down and fell into a dreamless sleep.

When I really awoke in the morning, I was blinded by sunlight streaming in through the windows. Everyone else was up and by the sounds of things, eating breakfast without me. I went through to where everyone was seated around a table eating toast.

"Is this really all we have" whined Kyle, looking at the toast uninterestedly but eating it anyway.

"Yep suck it up." laughed Frank, grabbing another slice. I dropped myself in the seat next to Ellis and grabbed a piece, chewing it slowly, wondering what happened to the rest of the survivors back in America. They were all either dead or had been mostly saved by the military bases that hadn't been overrun.

"Alright, I called the castle earlier and they said they cant send a rescue truck for four days 'cos they're too busy, apparently at the minute they're threatened with being overwhelmed." Grunted Frank.

"What? Oh well it's not too bad, we'll have to set up some sort of beacon so they can find us though." Replied Johnny.

"Well, when the shit went down, people were getting ready for bonfire night so there's loads of fireworks and a bonfire set up in the field you crashed in."

So we all grabbed our weapons and more ammo, Frank seemed to have enough for an army, and headed across the street to the field that was still littered with the corpses of our welcoming committee.

"Man I ain't never gonna forget that fight man." laughed Ellis, jumping over the corpse of the hunter that attacked Ricky, the pilot.

"So all we need to do is find the bonfire and put all the fireworks around it to make a very obvious beacon that we light when the rescue arrives?" asked Johnny.

"Pretty much yeah." I replied, kicking the corpse of a dead man. We set about finding the fireworks, since the fire was stacked about ten feet high in the middle of the field.

"Found some!" shouted Rachel, lifting up a big blue box with the word fireworks written on the side. She placed them in a part of a circle around the fire. It took us an hour and a half to find the rest of the fireworks but by the time we were done, we had a massive pile circling the bonfire and had set up an ammo pile with the help of Frank, who reluctantly gave us a crate of ammo. We trudged back in to the pub, weary and hungry, so we made some sandwiches and sat around for a while doing nothing. Slowly, Frank approached me and said,

"Can I ask you lot a favour?"

"Sure, it'd be the least we can do." I replied "What do you need?"

"Could you go to Frettenham, a village just down the road, and see if my friend Mark is okay?"

"Uh.. OK then we'll leave in a few minutes."

"Thanks, he's like my best friend, so I just wanna know if he's alive or not..." Frank trailed off into silence, looking around the room to avoid eye contact. We all gathered our things and Ricky grabbed a G36E rifle and two USP pistols along with a pipe bomb and some pain pills. We said goodbye to frank and started to head in the direction of the village, we encountered few infected, seems we'd killed most of them when we crash landed.

Half way there Ricky was grabbed by a smoker, but before any of us could react, he yanked a knife out of his belt and sliced off the tongue, pulling out a pistol and shooting it dead center in the chest and watching it explode into a cloud of smoke. "Fucking things." He muttered, pulling the tongue off of himself and walking back over to us where we stood, mouths agape. "What?" He asked, realising we were watching him. "I had to deal with a lot of these things before I rescued you guys ya know."Suddenly we heard a new sound, a sort of squealing scream. Then out of the trees burst a tall woman with pigtails, a distended stomach, wearing nothing but her bra and some torn white shorts, her lower jaw seemed to be hanging three inches lower than it should be. The skin around her mouth was worn away, revealing her inner mouth, from which a green substance seemed to be dripping. There was also a wedding ring on her finger. Suddenly she screamed and a ball of the green liquid flew at us and splashed at our feet, sizzling.

"Shit! This stuff burns man!" Shouted Ellis, jumping out of it like the rest of us. I raised my gun and shot her in the head. I noticed that as she died, she seemed to deflate and acid dripped out of her body.

"What the fuck was that?" Johnny gasped, making sure he didn't step in any of the now evaporating goo.

"Spitter, usually affects overweight women, hence the weird stomach, they spit acid at you that can burn through a person in about a minute flat." replied Ricky. "Well ain't she an ugly bitch? Sure that's not your mom Kyle?" Laughed Ellis, glancing at the now dissolving corpse of the spitter.

Kyle gave Ellis the finger and laughed along along with us.

We came to a hill and started to walk down it, past an abandoned garage that had a few corpses strewn about on the floor like shoes.

"Alright, this is the house Frank said." I pointed to a barricaded house on the other side of the street, noticing the blood spattered against the windows, but it appeared to be on the inside. "It doesn't look good though." We walked up to the front door and I pulled out my pistols, quickly but quietly opening the door. At first all I could see was an open hallway, but at the end, there seemed to be a pair of feet sticking out the doorway. I cautiously approached the doorway and peeked round it. The man on the floor could only be Mark, but his face was so mangled and torn, it was impossible to see any features.

Suddenly I heard weeping and saw that in the corner of the room, sat a witch. "Shit!" I whispered "Witch in the room, we have to get past her to find the rest of the family, whether they're dead or not." The others peeked round the corner, making sure they're lights were off and they didn't make any noise so as not to startle the witch. "Right, I'm gonna go in and slice the bitches head off, if that doesn't work, good luck"

I explained to the others. They silently protested but I crept into the room and pulled out my katana, lifting it into the air, I shouted "**OI BITCH! I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT**!" The witch turned and screamed, raising her clawed hand to slash at me as I drove my blade through her head and sliced it off before kicking it across the room. I turned to the others and said "And that...is how you kill a witch."

I sheathed my sword and we continued to search for survivors. We found nothing but more mangled corpses, most disturbingly, a couple were childrens. When we regrouped after searching the house, no-one had anything worth reporting.

"I hope Frank will be okay." Johnny said, glancing at Marks corpse and looking away, obviously horrified.

"I fucking hate zombies."Growled Kyle. We began to walk back towards our safe house, encountering a couple of hunters, a boomer and one more spitter before we re-entered the pub. Frank turned to Ricky and said.

"Well?" Ricky just looked at the floor and didn't say anything. "Oh... Thanks for looking anyway." Frank patted Ricky on the back and walked away, not wanting to show his emotions to us.

After that, we spent the next three days in the safe house, doing nothing but talking and occasionally playing with some cards that Ricky had found in his pocket.

It was dark when we finally heard some good news.

"Guys!" Frank called from the next room. "That rescue truck will be getting here soon, you might wanna light that fire."

"OK then, and Frank... thanks for all the help man." Johnny patted Frank on the back and joined the rest of us in gathering our weapons and health kits. We headed toward the giant beacon we had made and Rachel unhooked a Molotov from her belt, throwing it onto the fire, she then threw another one in the area of the fireworks, igniting most of the fuses.

"Right, the vehicle can find us, but now so can probably shit loads of infected." Explained Ricky over the noise of the now lit fireworks, looking around nervously. As soon as he finished speaking, the roar of a horde went up and we all readied ourselves, only thinking about getting out of this hell. Frank was going to providesupport with his mounted minigun from the second floor pub window.

I was mentally preparing myself for the inevitable fight when Kyle walked over to me and said.

"You ready man?" He handed me some pills and an adrenaline shot, along with my M-16, which Frank had cleaned for me.

"As I'll ever be." I sighed, wishing I could just be rid of this whole infection shit and be back at home with my family. You never realise how important something is until it's gone, it's a funny thing but it's true.

I joined the others and we all silently looked at each other, each knowing what we wanted to say. Good luck. As I was about to say something to Ellis, I was cut off by the loudest roar I've ever heard from a horde as they burst with explosive force from the forest, there must have been at least five hundred!

I raised my rifle and began slaughtering the mindless things that had once been human. I laughed as Ellis swore and punched an elderly infected in the jaw, knocking him to the floor where I stamped on his head, snapping his neck. As I was reloading I heard the squeal of a spitter and suddenly felt something ram into my back, knocking me to the ground. I instinctively rolled to the side as a claw smashed into the ground where my head had been a split second ago. I swung my leg round and kicked the spitter to the floor, allowing me to get up and put a bullet in her brain before jumping back into the fight. I pulled out my pistols and began placing careful head shots into the horde, making sure none reached me.

Suddenly I saw Kyle being dragged away by a smoker and watched Ricky throw his knife at it, striking it in the forehead and killing it instantly. The fireworks were still going off, hopefully telling our rescue vehicle where we were, but unfortunately, the infected too.

I ran to join the others by the fire and grab some more ammo for my M-16 while Frank covered us from the pub. I heard a shriek and was knocked to the ground by a hunter before Rachel shot it with her M4A1 rifle, killing it and helping me up. I thought the horde was gone, but a second wave screeched and burst out of the forest, along with a pair of tanks. "TAAAANK...S!" I shouted, making sure the others knew they were there. I ran towards the first tank with my katana raised and ducked its flying left arm, throwing myself to the side at the last second. I continued to dodge it's arms while it roared at me as I slashed at it's chest and face, determined to kill it. I was doing well until a massive fist collided with my side, obviously the other tank didn't appreciate my attacks on it's 'friend' and it punched me dangerously close to the fire.

I slowly got up, groaning in pain, I thought I had a couple of broken ribs at least. I turned to see the first tank barreling towards me, arms flailing and snarling, blood still streaming from my sword inflicted wounds. I pulled out my rifle and yelled as it came closer. Miraculously, it died just as I ran out of ammo. However, my happiness was short lived as I heard the yell of a smoker and felt something slimy wrap around my throat, cutting off my airway and dragging me back to the remains of the horde. My vision was starting to go black when I felt the pressure released and I turned to see Ellis grinning, his gun barrel slightly smoking.

"I ain't leaving you, but you better get up." He helped me to my feet and I ate some pain pills, feeling my bruises and cuts ease off the pain almost immediately. He shot the few infected around me while I got up and I turned to see the others relentlessly firing at the second tank.

"Throwing a molly!" shouted Ellis, throwing it towards the tank who roared in pain as it smashed into its face, not igniting it as Ellis had hoped, and began running towards him."Shit, didn't see that coming!" he shouted, running away from the furious mass of muscles.

I ran behind it and jumped onto it's back, driving my katana into it's back and using it as a handle to steady myself as it attempted to throw me off. Steadying myself with one hand, I emptied the clip of my rifle into its small head and smirked, satisfied when it groaned and slumped forward, dead.

We finished off the remains of the hordes and watched as a heavily armoured truck skidded to a stop beside us and the door opened, revealing seven men in gas masks with guns gesturing for us to get on. "Hold on!" I shouted at the nearest guard. He nodded and started shooting the remaining infected as I ran back to the pub.

"Frank!" I shouted up to the window, where he was gunning down the few infected in the field. "Come on rescues here!"

"No can do kid! I'm stayin' put for now!" Saying that he pressed a button and a shrill continuous beep rang out, followed by a roar from a horde as they surged towards the pub, towards Frank gunning them down mercilessly, towards the almost defenceless me.


	4. Chapter 4 A lesson in life and death

Chapter 4

"What are you doing?" I yelled, running towards the front door, intent on pulling him out of there myself if I had to. As I neared the front door, he suddenly shot a gas canister next to the barricades, igniting them and then pointing his gun back to the approaching horde.

"Just go kid! I'll only slow you down! I'm gettin' too old for this horseshit!" he resumed firing at the horde while his defenses burned, preventing anything getting in and him getting out.

I swore and ran back to the armoured truck as the horde reached the pub and ran mindlessly into the fire, only to be either crisped and dried by flames or snuffed out by Frank's mounted machine gun.

"Well where is he?" asked Kyle as I got on board and the door closed as we drove away from the carnage.

"He burnt the barricades and said he was staying there." I explained to the others, making sure everyone was here. The truck started to lurch forward and drove through and occasionally over, the infected and towards the castle in the city centre. I hoped we'd be safe there.

"So how long till we get there?" Johnny asked the soldier nearest him after we had been driving for about ten minutes.

"Shut up!" He shouted at Johnny and shoved him back into his seat, raising his gun and pointing it at Johnny.

I watched in shock as the soldier hit Johnny in the face with the butt of his shotgun, almost breaking his jaw by the sound of it.

"HEY!" I shouted and punched the soldier clean in the mouth, sending him sprawling. Immediately his partner stepped up to me and punched me in the gut, doubling me over. He followed up with a knee to the groin and I fell down, breathless and in pain.

Rachel started sobbing into Kyle's shoulder, obviously not happy that we seemed to be in more trouble in this truck than with the zombies back in Spixworth. I stared, dumbfounded at the soldiers who were supposed to be helping us but had just attacked two of us.

We sat in silence the rest of the journey, too worried to speak. When we stopped, we all grabbed our weapons and stood up quickly as the doors opened, only to be greeted by more armed soldiers. "Hey there, now I don't know what y'all think manners are over here-" Ellis was cut off as the foremost soldier punched him in the stomach, sending him reeling in pain.

"Drop your weapons or we will shoot you!" Shouted the soldier who punched Ellis.

"Wow, tough crowd." I muttered, dropping my weapons to the ground and watching as the others did the same and the soldiers snatched them up and walked off.

"Bane! What the hell are you doing?" A voice shouted from behind the soldiers. They parted and a relatively small man stepped out, he wore glasses, had greying hair down to his shoulders and was clutching a clipboard in one hand, a laptop in the other. "Forgive these men, they're getting paranoid about carriers ever since the first one came in and we nearly got overrun."

I was taken aback at how the soldiers all seemed to obey this man, whom they could easily overpower and take charge of, but didn't. "Can we at least have our stuff back?" I asked, offering my hand to the small man, who shook it thoroughly before turning to the soldiers.

"Give them their weapons back now!" He barked, smiling as the soldiers meekly apologized and handed all our weapons back. They still had their weapons slightly raised, and that unnerved me somewhat.

"Well hi, I'm Sam and this is..." I introduced everyone and turned back to the man in front of me.

"Pleased to meet you, my name is Karl Brown, I'm the head scientist here, I'm working on a cure, or at least a vaccine."

"You think you can cure this shit?" Asked Kyle incredulously, still looking hatefully at the soldiers still watching us.

"Dunno, but I can try." He laughed before continuing. "You all look tired, please come with me, we have beds and food for all of you."

"Thanks for the help." I thanked Karl, following him into the massive castle.

The first thing that I noticed was how big it was, the ceiling seemed to be at least forty feet tall, the floor was covered in big red and blue carpets that were now slightly splattered in blood. Covering the walls were posters advertising all the exhibits in this castle museum, along with some swords and shields decorated to look like family crests. What was most noticeable was that at every window was a guard armed with a sniper rifle, and all along the fence on the outside was barbed wire and what looked like tripwires.

"Quite the security set up." I mused, watching as a man at one of the windows fired a single round and smirking when he heard the cry of pain from a hunter below. "Expecting visitors?" I smirked as Karl laughed at my joke, leading us up a staircase and to the top floor of the castle.

"This is our beautiful city now." He said sadly, leading us on to the rooftop where we found more guards patrolling.  
I looked over the edge of the wall and gasped. The majority of the city was destroyed and burning, Norwich city slowly falling to hell along with the rest of the world.

"Why is it so crumbled?" I asked, curious as to why most of the buildings were crumbled and destroyed.

"Lets just say, a lot of our people seem to have a thing for changing into tanks." He gazed sadly at the burning city and said "The whole city's burning, and there's no fire crews to put it out." With that he turned us back inside and showed us to our rooms, five beds in a relatively big room, along with a shower and some food.

We all showered and ate before sleeping comfortably for once. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered if we would be safe here or if we would end up running again because of those motherfucking zombies.

I dreamt badly again that night.

_I was running from a tank when I was pounced by a hunter, but this time it was different. It bit me and leapt away screeching. I stood up and turned around, only to come face to face with the tank I had been running from. It growled at me and raised its arm to punch me but suddenly my vision went fuzzy and I collapsed to the floor, unconscious._

_I awoke and my vision was tinged with orange, my hands elongated into claws. My nails were bloodied and my teeth had sharpened into fangs, my leg muscles felt insanely strong and so did my arms. I tried to speak and all that came out was a snarl. I had a sudden craving for blood and decided I needed to eat something, or someone. I ran and jumped and found I could leap great distances and climb at least fifty foot walls, I realised what had happened. I had become a hunter. The word itself was like a curse and I loathed what I had become, my mind refusing to work properly._

_But I was immune, why did this happen? Or was I just a very lucky person not to have been infected until now? _

_I carried on jumping until I smelt a delicious smell, flesh and blood. I growled and ran towards the smell, only to find it was my friends that smelt so nice. They were finishing off a horde while covering Ellis, who seemed to be bleeding very badly from his left arm. They didn't notice me and soon, hunger overcame reason. I let out a shriek and leapt onto Rachel and began tearing at her while she screamed and tried to push me off. I relished in the blood that spurted out of her stomach and raised my claw, slicing away her lower jaw and tearing out her throat with my teeth, snarling triumphantly as I felt her blood drip down my chin. It only took a few seconds to kill her and by then the others had shoved me off of her cold dead body. Inside I was horrified at killing my friend but my mind had just told me to rip and feed. As I jumped back to her body and bent down to take a bite out of her now dead flesh, I heard a gun cock and looked up to see myself holding a gun to my face!_

_"Fucking zombies." growled human me, before pulling the trigger and everything suddenly going black._

I awoke, gasping for air and reaching for my katana when I realised it was just Johnny shaking me awake as it was daytime, sunlight flowing through the castle window.

"Morning sunshine." He grinned, noticing me holding my katana. "Bad dreams?"

"Yeah sort of, it was nothing, don't worry." I got up and stretched before picking up my weapons again.

"Karl says there's some breakfast down stairs in the main hall, apparently there's a hall or something for everyone to eat breakfast."

As we went to walk out the door, five armed soldiers wearing gas masks barged in and practically shouted. "You cant go anywhere until you've been tested!"

They grabbed us all by our arms and dragged us down three flights of stairs until we came to some sort of lab. There were scientists walking about in white lab coats and some were standing and typing at computers. A tall man wearing a gas mask came up to us and said in a soothing voice. "I'm sorry about this, but you have to be tested before we can let you anywhere near the un-immunes."

"What? We're all immune! I think we should know that by now! We've killed enough motherfucking zombies and not gotten infected!" Spat Kyle, throwing off the soldiers arm and glaring at the scientist. He almost growled when the soldier tried to grab him again.

"Be that as it may, you may be immune, or you could be carriers." Explained the scientist, writing something on his clipboard. "If you are carriers, we cannot let you in with those who are not immune, as it would infect them and we would all be in shit again."

"Fine then, but it better not take long, I'm starving." Grumbled Johnny, as if to emphasize this, his stomach growled loud enough for the few scientists in the vicinity to glance up at the sound.

It only took about fifteen minutes for them to take some blood samples and then do all the scientific stuff with microscopes before they came back with the results.

"Good news!" exclaimed the scientist, reading from his clipboard. "You're immune..."

We cheered and started to walk off before we were stopped.

"Except for Ricky, Sam and Rachel..." He trailed off into silence as the three of us mentioned stood completely still, too shocked to say anything.

"We're carriers?" Choked out Rachel, who seemed on the verge of tears as she leant against Kyle, who held her up with his arm.

"I'm sorry but yes, you are carrying parts of the Green flu in your blood, however, there isn't enough to infect you and that's why you are immune but if you come into contact with anyone who is not, then you will surely infect them with the virus, I'm sorry." He walked off, only to be replaced by the soldiers who had brought us here, their commander, Bane, was regarding Me, Rachel and Ricky with looks of disgust, almost as if we had just eaten someones liver or something.

"Right, you three come with us, the rest of you can go back to the food hall with the non-immunes."

"Hang on a minute." Said Ellis, rearranging his cap on his messy hair before continuing.  
"If we're immune, then can't we come with them since we wont infect anyone or be infected?"

"Fine come on then." He barked some orders at the soldiers before leading us away from the rest of the castle and to the other side, where there was the same facilities as the first side, but the people here looked more depressed and upset than the others.

We all ate in silence in the carriers' food hall, afraid to say anything for fear of someone overhearing and our conversations being deemed bad.

"Attention everyone!" Called out a rather tall man holding a ruler. "There will be a class on the infected in ten minutes in the aquatic exhibit, we have enough seats for all of you, so please come along, it might help if we need to figure out where and what some of them are, or if you get stuck somewhere alone and want to stay safe." He walked off, leaving everyone to continue eating and talking to each other quietly.

"Should we go?" asked Rachel in a small voice, she had been quiet ever since getting the news that she was a carrier.

"I don't see why not." I shrugged, laughing as Kyle choked on his bacon.

"Alright then, we'll all go." Confirmed Johnny.

After we had all eaten we followed everyone else to the exhibit where there were chairs and a projector set up. We all took seats and waited for the man from earlier to show up.

"Sorry I'm late guys, got held up by the scientists. They needed help with some of our live test subjects" He was carrying a small remote, he pressed a button and all the lights went out. He pressed it again and a picture of a boomer appeared on the screen.

"OK, this is a boomer, anyone know what it is or what it does?"

Me and my friends looked at each other in surprise, they were teaching people about infected like it was some five year old class at school. He went on to explain: boomers, spitters, smokers, hunters, witches and tanks, none of us taking interest because we all knew what they were and what they could do.

"So who knows what a charger is?"

Our ears pricked up at that, none of us had heard about this before.

The picture was of a man in overalls, looking to be about twice his original height, his face was squashed flat and one of his arms had grown massive while his other flopped around uselessly.

"This is a charger. They do what it says on the tin, they charge into you and if they grab hold of you, they will smash you into the ground until one of you dies. They're easy to find because they snort while running around and roar when charging you, if one comes after you, get out of the way or run in zigzags to stop it grabbing you."

I stared in shock at this new creature, they were mutating again? I was focused on remembering the charger when the picture changed yet again.

It was a small man, his back was hunched and his laps were drawn back in a cackle. What was most disturbing was the fact his hands (claws) and teeth were both smeared in blood. His shirt was ripped open where his spine was almost tearing through his back, he was also wearing a green pair of sports shorts.

"Now this... is a jockey. They will jump onto your shoulders and attempt to rip your head off. They can also use their weight to draw you into obstacles such as: spitter acid, off bridges, into holes and hordes. The only way to tell if there's a jockey around is the insane laughing they constantly make while alive."

After asking questions about the special infected for half an hour, the man asked. "If someone you know gets infected, what do you do?"

"You kill them." Came the answer from a teenage boy in the front, he looked like one of the posh rich boys who had been evacuated straight away because of his mother and fathers money and the fact they were too important to wait. His voice was stuck up and he was dressed like one of those people who think they are better than everyone else.

"You think it's that easy?" I demanded, standing up and glaring at him, convinced my eyes were as threatening as a witches blood red embers.

"Well yeah, if they're infected, they're just gonna kill you anyway."

"Tell me, have you ever killed one of your best friends because they were infected?" I snarled, outraged that he would think it would be so easy, remembering my best friend Cole, who I had killed in our first encounter with infected.

"No." he said in a small voice.

"Have you come in contact with the infected? have you had to take away someones life because they've just tried to kill you? Have you had to fight your way through fuck tons of these bastards just to get here from another fucking country? Or did you come here straight away because of your families fucking importance and money so you wouldn't be uncomfortable? But no one cares about you now! You're just a carrier who's gonna die if we get attacked, so I suggest you shut up and don't say anything else!" I was glaring at him now.

He said nothing, turning away from me and looking back to the image of the infected in a line.

"Anyway," Continued the teacher as if nothing had happened, "We have footage of some of the infected, if any of you are squeamish, I wouldn't watch."

He pressed another button on his remote of wonders and a video appeared on the screen. There were seven soldiers, plus the cameraman, all heavily armed with shotguns and rifles and walking stealthily through a forest towards the sound of hollow weeping.

"Witch!" Hissed the cameraman, zooming in on a grey skinned figure slouched on the floor ahead of them, surrounded by corpses and covered in blood. This witch was slowly grazing her claws across the dirt as if she wanted to draw a picture. They slowly crept up to her and one soldier stepped forward.

As soon as he did, the witches head snapped round and she growled threateningly. He stepped back and she resumed crying, until he stepped forward again, with the same result. He did this a few times before he took two steps forward. The witch slowly rose to her feet, arms outstretched in warning, but too late. As he began to back away, she let out an ear piercing scream and rushed towards him, swinging her left arm in a horizontal arc as she did so. One screech later and his body was lying three feet away from his legs while she growled at the other soldiers, who now had their weapons raised and trained on her. She screamed and ran away into the forest as fast as she could with her head in her hands.

The video changed and they were now in an industrial sort of place, tall buildings everywhere. The soldiers were covered in blood, obviously they had run into a horde earlier on.

Suddenly, there was maniacal laughing coming seemingly from nowhere.

"Shit jockey!" hissed the cameraman as he looked around to find the source of the laughing.

A window smashed and one of the soldiers suddenly screamed.

"GET IT OFF ME!"

Perched on his shoulders like a grotesque parrot was the jockey, still laughing chaotically, its teeth bared as it snarled and yet laughed. His partners couldn't shoot the jockey for fear of hitting their companion. The soldier continued to scream until the jockey screamed itself and tore his head off, blood and brains splattering everywhere before the remaining soldiers shot the jockey dead.

The video changed again and there were only five soldiers there now, I didn't realise why until the distant roar of a tank told me all I needed to know. Three of them were limping quite noticeably and the camera was shaking badly, obviously the cameraman had hurt his leg too.

"Dear god, did you see the size of that bastard?" Exclaimed the cameraman, turning to look at his comrades before focusing again on the street in front of them.

"It was three times bigger than a normal tank!" The soldier to his left gasped, holding his side which was bleeding rather badly from something that looked like hunter marks.

They continued to limp along until there was a strangled roar from the building next to them. Suddenly, a thing I could only guess was a charger burst through the doors and charged at the nearest soldier, grabbing him and running headfirst into a wall and then slamming the soldier into the ground in its massive fist as the others opened fire.

By the time they killed it, the soldier was definitely dead, his spine had been ripped out of his back and was on the floor, his skull was smashed in, leaving smears of blood on the dead chargers arm as their blood pooled and mixed on the floor.

The video stopped and the teacher turned on the lights and turned to us, looking very upset.

"The one who got killed by the charger was my brother." He answered as someone put their hand up to ask what was wrong.

We left the class and returned to our room, not doing anything for the rest of the day but talk and listen to the occasional gunshot as one of the snipers killed an infected.

I left the others and decided to walk around the castle, ending up on the roof and watching the city still slowly burning down around me.

"Still upset about earlier?" It was Rachel, she came and stood next to me, leaning backwards against the railing, completely unfazed by the height.

"What do you mean?" I asked, not wanting to look directly down because of the height.

"In that class, that kid really pissed you off huh?"

"Yeah I guess, I just keep remembering killing Cole. I mean, he was almost family and I just killed him! I don't even know where my real family are!" Exasperated, I threw my arms in the air and wiped my eyes before Rachel could see me almost crying.

Rachel was about to say something else but was cut off by the screech of a hunter and suddenly whirled round, looking in horror at something behind me.

I turned and saw crouched on the roof, a hunter watching us. I started to reach for my katana, before I realized something very bad. Our weapons were in the room!

It snarled and threw itself towards Rachel, but I jumped in front of her and it collided with me instead, beginning to tear at my clothes.

"Fuck off you piece of shit!" I yelled, punching it in the face and shoving it off me. I kicked it in the head and it tried to turn and run away but I grabbed it by the hood and kneed it in the face before picking it up and throwing it off the edge of the castle. I waited until I heard the thud and crunch of it hitting the concrete before turning back to face Rachel.

"How the hell did it get up here?" Screamed Rachel.

"We need to get back to the room now." I said, turning to run back inside.

"Why?" asked Rachel.

I turned her around and pointed to the distance, where a massive horde was coming, followed by about twelve tanks.

"Things are about to get real busy around here."


	5. Chapter 5 Repent, infection is nigh

Chapter 5

We both sprinted back to the room, shoving past people in our attempt to warn the others before the hordes got here.

I burst into the room first, out of breath and panting as Ellis was finishing off a story about Keith.

"What's goin on?" Demanded Ellis, clearly annoyed that he had been interrupted just before the end of his story.

"Grab your stuff quickly! There's a fucking huge horde and a dozen tanks about to pay us a visit!" I yelled at the rest of the group as they sat there, looking perplexed.

"What? How the hell are we supposed to stop that?" Shouted back Kyle, grabbing his guns from the table next to his bed.

"We're not." I replied, "WE, are going to get the hell out of here before they get here."

"But that means we have to just leave everyone else here to die!"

"OK then, you stay here and warn them and let us know how it works out when you're being ripped apart by millions of zombies."

Kyle stopped arguing and finished grabbing his guns as the others did the same. We burst through the door and began to run toward the exits, noticing guards giving people guns and the snipers already picking off infected. Clearly they had seen our attackers and begun to take action.

I saw the boy from the earlier class bolt past me, and in a way, I was glad he'd get a chance to see the infected up close and personal, but still hoped he would survive. I carried on running and soon we were at the front doors to the castle. We burst through them and ran down the drawbridge/driveway, towards the front walls and gate, hoping we'd get away in time.

"Wait! Can anyone drive that?" Shouted Rachel, pointing to an army jeep that had a mini gun mounted on it.

"I can!" Shouted Kyle, already running towards it and hopping in the front seat as the others got in while I jumped on the mini gun.

The keys were already in the ignition luckily and the engine roared to life before sending us hurtling away from the castle and the zombies. I felt a twinge of guilt when I thought about all the people who'd just been left behind, but stopped worrying when I saw jeeps and tanks (army tanks) going in different directions and one or two following us. I knew there weren't enough jeeps to evacuate the entire castle but was glad the people left for dead at least had means to defend their selves.

As we rounded a corner, a loud roar came from behind us and I swung the machine gun around, aiming at the tank that was now charging after us and the two jeeps following us. I saw the look of horror on the first jeep drivers face, just before the tank jumped onto them, crushing the jeep and all its occupants.

It roared again and picked up the mangled remains of the jeep before throwing it at the second. They managed to avoid it, but didn't see the charger coming round the corner of the building next to them. With a strangled roar, it rammed into their jeep and flipped it over, sending sparks and shards of glass flying, along with splattered blood on the inside.

I yelled furiously and shot the charger right between the eyes, feeling happy until I remembered the tank and swung myself to the right so I could aim properly at the monstrous beast. I began firing into its massive hulk, not seeming to do any damage to it.

It grunted as I blew away a large chunk of its arm and put bullet after bullet into its giant torso. Eventually, it gave one last, feeble roar before it slumped over and died.

We continued to drive on towards God knows what, hopefully a safe house or another safe zone. After the tank and charger, we didn't have much trouble from any infected, only the occasional smoker, who would try to grab the jeep, only to be pulled off its perch and land on the ground with a sickening crunch once its tongue got caught on the jeep and we pulled it along.

It was almost sunset when I spotted a red arrow pointing left down an alleyway. I shouted at Kyle to stop, pointing out what I had seen. He pulled the jeep over and once we had grabbed our weapons, we jumped out and started heading down the alleyway, it was filled with dumpsters and large piles of boxes that were about seven feet tall.

"There it is!" I called out, pointing to the end of the alley, where standing proudly, was a church. The front door was painted red, which meant it was the safe house. Oddly, the door was shut and there was a priest standing in the tower of the church next to the rope that used the bell.

"Hey there!" Shouted Johnny. "Can you open the door for us?"

The priest said nothing, but he lifted up a black object, which I quickly realised, was a sniper rifle! I ran and pushed Johnny out of the way as a bullet pierced the air where his head had been mere seconds ago. We all dived behind boxes or dumpsters so the crazy priest in the tower couldn't spot us and blow our brains out.

"What the fuck man?" Kyle yelled to the priest, who was now looking through the scope of his rifle to see if he could find us.

"The Lord brought this plague of Hell upon us, but I am pure, therefore, I will need no cleansing by these demons!" He cackled and spat off of the roof of the building before returning his gaze to the alleyway and continuing. "I will kill anyone who dares to try and take my church from me, there are three people trapped in the safe house right now, they thought they could take it from me, but I shot their leader, right between his eyes and have been keeping them here, waiting for them to open the door so I can use this bell to call the demons come and make them suffer for their sins!" He was almost screaming now.

I was getting increasingly worried, if we tried to get to the safe house, he'd shoot us. If we tried to get back to our car, he'd shoot us. I realised with horror, that we'd have to shoot him to get past, since there was no way we could convince him otherwise.

"Okay then man, call the fucking 'demons' if you want, we can take 'em" I shouted, trying and failing to not feel guilty about what was about to happen.

"As you wish!" He laughed and pulled on a big rope, as the bell chimed loudly, there was a great roar, signalling the approaching horde.

"Rachel, throw a Molotov at the entrance of the alley!" I shouted, praying (ironically) that she'd hear me.

She did, she unbuckled one from her belt, lit it with a lighter in her hoody pocket and threw it at the entrance, causing bright flames to flare up and dance around the spot it had hit.

The first of the infected reached the alleyway, only to be consumed with fire as they blindly rushed to get to us. Eventually the flames died down and we were forced to start shooting the infected that clambered over the burnt corpses of the first wave.

I switched my rifle to single shot and fired carefully, making sure none got near me or my friends, that way, they couldn't make us move because they were attacking us and the crazy priest wouldn't be able to shoot us if we were forced to move.

After three or four minutes, the horde was gone and we were still in our hiding places, unwilling to even peek our heads out, in case the priest blew our heads off for our troubles.

I carefully unslung my M21 from my shoulder and looked down the scope through a gap in my hiding place. I saw the priest, standing in the tower still, looking through his sniper scope trying to find us. I gulped, hating myself for what I was about to do, and fired.

There was a strangled cry and I looked through my scope again to see the priest stumbling about the tower, clutching his now bleeding throat, he gave a feeble gurgle and fell over, not moving again. We ran to the safe room and banged against the door, shouting to be let in until a pair of hands reached through the bars and opened the door. We tumbled inside, stood up and looked around.

The room was at least twelve feet across and had six doors leading into separate rooms, there was a generator in the corner and an oven, microwave as well as a small heater and a huge stack of ammo, weapons and food.

"Wow, nice place." I mumbled, still in shock from shooting my first (and hopefully last) uninfected person. I looked up and saw three people standing in front of me, two men and a girl, all equally grim looking and covered in blood and dirt.

The first was a black businessman in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a red tie hung loosely around his neck, he was grinning despite what had just happened.

"Name's Louis, glad to meet you." I shook his hand and looked at the man next to him.

He was wearing a white top underneath a grey, blood and brains covered vest. He looked quite intimidating, especially with all the tattoos adorning his arms. He also had a goatee on his face. "I'm Francis, I'm indestructible." He laughed and walked off to sit on a sofa, biting into a chocolate bar and munching it noisily, looking over our team with a look of impressed confusion.

The last member of their team was a girl who looked to be about eighteen, nineteen. She was dressed similarly to Rachel, white tank top, pink hoodie and jeans. Ellis appeared to be unable to take his eyes off her. "Hi, I'm zoey." I shook her hand and introduced my team, Ellis simply stammering and walking away, red faced, when Zoey smiled at him.

"Where are you going then?" I asked, settling down on the sofa next to Francis.

"Well, we're gonna get a boat and find an island." Replied Louis.

"Yeah, we figured, vampires can't swim right?" Cut in Francis.

"They're zombies Francis." Chuckled Zoey, she sat down next to Rachel and listened to our conversation.

"Whatever, anyways, we can get a ton of food, stay on the island until we're rescued or the vam- zombies all die." Francis explained to us all.

"Sounds good, but I think we're just gonna try and find another safe zone or evac." I replied. I got up and grabbed some bread and a jar of peanut butter and began making sandwiches for everyone.

After we had all eaten, we all showered (in cold water, the heater had gone off weeks ago) and found beds in the other rooms. We slept soundly all night, only to be awoken by the roar of a tank outside.

"Get up! It's right outside!" Shouted Johnny, grabbing his weapons off the bedside table along with some extra pills and ammo.

We ran to the safe house door and looked through the bars to see the muscly beast charging down the alleyway toward the safe house, toward us.

"Quick! Upstairs!" Shouted Francis, starting to fire his shotgun at the fast approaching tank.

The nine of us hurtled up the stairs to the tower, away from the tank that was now punching at the safe house door, desperately trying to get in and rip us to shreds.

I recoiled slightly when I saw the body of the priest and the pool of blood around him, only to step back into the tower when an almighty crash told me all I needed to know.

The tank was inside.

I looked around and saw a ladder on the side of the tower, I shouted at the others to climb down while I made sure the tank stayed downstairs. I took a Molotov from Zoey and threw it down the stairs, grinning slightly when I heard the agonized roar of the tank as it caught fire. The grin was wiped from my face when the floor began to tremble and a crunching noise was heard as the tank charged up the stairs. I jumped toward the window, pulling myself outside and grabbing the ladder before beginning a hasty retreat down it, away from the tank that was roaring and throwing its arms about and destroying the tower. I almost vomited when the dead priests body hurtled past me and made a sickening crunching noise on the pavement below.

"Whew, that was close!" Breathed Ellis, taking off his cap to wipe the sweat from his forehead with a sleeve.

We had found an abandoned warehouse and hurriedly got inside, barricading the doors and windows so that we could have a break before we set out again.

"Yeah, I thought we were goners!" Laughed Zoey, making Ellis blush and smile awkwardly at her. "Well anyway, it was great for you to help us back there with the crazy guy, but we need to find a boat, you need to find your 'safezone' so we're gonna have to go different ways now."

"Shame, well, hopefully we'll see you another time." I chuckled and stood up, the rest of my team following suit, we walked to the door, ready to face whatever was out there, without the help of our new found friends.

"Hang on, what's this?" asked Johnny, holding up a piece of paper with the word CEDA written in big letters across the top.

"Looks like the warning posters CEDA put up when the infection first got out." I replied, taking it from him and reading it out loud. "Report unusual behaviour, barricade your homes, avoid all contact with the infected individuals, wait for official instructions."

"Wait my ass!" Laughed Kyle, reading the sheet through again.

"Kill all sonsa bitches, that's mah official instructions." Smirked Ellis, cocking his gun and facing the door. He kicked it open and an infected woman in a green shirt and torn blue shorts screeched and ran at him before he blew her had off and began shooting the other infected like the rest of us.

I swung my katana relentlessly, slicing off countless heads and limbs before the infected suddenly stopped, for there were none left alive. I sighed and wiped the blood from my face with my right sleeve before facing the others and saying, "Well, let's find a damn safe house, I'm tired already!"

We began heading south, towards the capital city, London. signs had been painted on walls and windows in the streets, saying that there was a massive safe zone there. There wasn't much infected activity until we heard the sound of gunfire and began to run towards the sound of screaming and gunshots. We rounded a blood splattered corner and found a horrifying scene lay before us.

There were bodies everywhere, infected and immune alike. The infected had been killed by blades and gunshots, but the bodies of the immunes were all torn open and half eaten, one man had had his arms ripped off and his stomach was shredded open, revealing organs glistening in the sun. Still fighting the infected were two men and a woman, all brandishing guns and fighting the infected as hard as they could, we were about to surprise the infected when Rachel screamed and they all turned to look at us before screaming and changing targets.

I was gonna make them pay for this bloodbath.

I yelled and raised my rifle, switching to fully automatic and spraying bullets into the horde, not caring when half of them didn't hit anything. My shoulder began to ache after my fifth reload from the recoil of the endless firing, so I pulled out my katana and began mutilating the infected instead. I finished off the horde and ran over to the three survivors, huddled in a corner away from the infected corpses. The woman was silently crying into the tall mans shoulder while he bandaged her arm, which was bleeding quite badly. The smaller man was a little away from them, crying with his head on his arms and his arms on his knees.

"Leave me, John." She choked out, sobbing harder than before into John's shoulder.

"No, Mary." He hugged her tightly and was smiling until she growled and sank her teeth deep into his neck, eliciting a howl of pain and a jet of blood from him as he writhed on the ground in agony.

"Ricky, kill her now!" I shouted at him, he stepped forward and put his rifle to her head, pulling the trigger and blowing her brains out on the cold, hard pavement while John screamed and rolled on the floor in pain and the smaller man stayed huddled in the corner, sobbing quietly. I looked at John and stepped back, horrified.

His eyes had turned blood red, his fingertips were elongating into claws along with his teeth. He began to snarl as his arms and legs became more muscly and his skin turned a sickly grey colour. He had become a hunter.

He turned and before we could raise a gun, he pounced on the small man, shredding his chest and jumping quickly away when Rachel shot him in the foot.

The small man looked at us and said, "Kill me, before I turn too, do it... now!" He screamed in agony but none of us could bring ourselves to raise a gun to the man huddled pathetically in the corner, crying and whimpering in pain.

He screamed again in pain, the reason was obvious. His arms and torso were becoming increasingly larger with lumpy and misshapen muscles, while his legs only got slightly bulkier. His head began to sink into his chest as the muscle grew rapidly, he was panting and snorting, his eyes became grey and dead, and within three minutes, a newly formed tank was standing in front of us.

Ellis regained his senses first, raising his machete and driving it into the tanks head.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"RUN!" Screamed Rachel screamed, she turned and began to sprint down an aleyway to her left, pumping her arms furiously, intent on outrunning the numerous burning witches hurtling toward her.

All of us (excluding Rachel, who was still running) raised our guns and began pumping the sprinting witches full of lead. The first few died quickly, having been burnt to scrisps already. The last three however, were tougher and seemed to be trying to resist the flames, screaming and slowly approaching Rachel, who had come back when Ricky told her the dangerous ones were dead. They stumbled slowly towards her, screaming weakly and reaching out with their claws. The witch at the back groaned and sank to the floor, her flesh peeling off her bones as she burned to death. The second witch was cut down by my katana when it went through her stomach and practically ripped her organs out.

The last witch however, was tougher than the others and continued to stumble towards Rachel, screaming through her charred lips. It stumbled a few more swipes, then fell to her knees before laying face down on the floor, unmoving and still burning.

"Well that was fun." laughed Rachel, she was grinning from ear to ear at the rest of us who were in disbelief of what had just happened.

"You do that again, and I'll let them eat you." threatened Kyle, he was pale and checking to see if Rachel was hurt.

We carried on towards our destination, stopping every few hours for a break, until we came to a giant house on the edge of a town. Normally, we would have just carried on through the town, but something stopped me. There was smoke coming from the chimney! We ran towards the house, guns raised and all alert, should the infected decide to surprise us.

As we neared the front door, the slot in the door opened and a shotgun barrel was pushed through.

"Don't come any closer." A deep voice growled from behind the gun.

"Woah, hey man, we only showed up cos we saw the smoke, thought we could stay here." I protested, stepping back when the barrel got closer to my head.

"Any a you lot carriers?" He almost yelled it at us.

"Well, I am, so's Ricky and Rachel." I pointed to the other two and he switched the barrel to point at them instead.

"I oughta blow your fucking heads off right now then."

"What? Why?" I yelled. "If your not immune, we'll just leave, you don't need to shoot us!"

"Yes I do, my wife got killed cos she let one of you carriers in here, poor bitch turned into a witch and slaughtered the kids, until I blew her head off just like I'm about to yours." The sound of a shotgun being pumped was heard before the shot, Ricky fell to the floor, the blast got his arm and he lay clutching it while the man behind the door pumped his gun again.

As soon as the shot was fired, I pulled out my pistols and without even thinking, unloaded both clips into the door. There were a few shrieks of pain and then the noises stopped. I stopped firing, small wisps of smoke issuing from the barrels.

"Is Ricky OK?" I asked while frantically checking his arm, it was bleeding, but only a few of the pellets were still in his arm, the shot hadn't been aimed well at all luckily.

"I'll be fine, just need a couple of bandages that's all" He grinned and stood up, wincing slightly when he swung his arm.

"I can't believe you shot that guy though Sam." Johnny looked shocked.

"Second uninfected guy I've killed, hopefully this one's the last."

I walked up to the door, now riddled with bullet holes, and slowly pushed it open. The front hallway was a mess. There were coats on the floor and blood smeared on the walls, the table that the phone stood on was in pieces on the floor and there were chunks taken out of the wall. But right behind the door lying in a spreading pool of crimson liquid, was the old man. There were bullet holes all over his chest and only a few of them had missed apparently. He held the shotgun in one limp hand and in the other, a picture of him, beside him were two smiling teenage girls and on his other side, a lady who was obviousy his wife. They were standing on a sunny beach and smiling into the camera.

I looked away, sickened that I had killed two people now who werent infected. I stumbled away down the hallway and began to ascend the stairs, reloading my pistols. I entered the first hallway, standing in front of the first door, I took in a deep breath and slowly pushed it open.

I threw up.

Inside the room were three bodies, the first was the sickly grey corpse of a witch. Her head had been blown off and she was slumped against the wall on which her brains were splattered. The other two were small girls, the first had been literally torn in half and her organs were scattered across the bloodstained bed as if they were just

books. Her head was lying next to a doll house and one of the eyes had been pulled out.

The second girl had been impaled on a pogo stick and blood was still dripping out of her mouth. Her eyes seemed to be boring into mine, as if saying 'Why didn't you help me?' I couldn't look anymore and fell back into the hallway, shuddering and closing my eyes. The others stepped into the room and all but Kyle threw up, though he stumbled out looking pale and sick.

"Why are these zombies so fucking hostile?" Choked Kyle.

"They don't know what they're doing, it's the damn virus that makes them do this!" I replied.

"What? And that means we should hold their hands and explain what good and bad is to them?" Demanded Kyle angrily.

"Hell no! Just try to remember that they were- and still sort of are- human."

"Well they're not aymore! I don't care if they were human, now I'm just gonna kill as many of them as I can before I die." Kyle was stony faced but still pale from seeing the childrens bodies.

I understood what he meant, after killing adults and seeing their bodies, it was disturbing to see childrens bodies now.

"Y'all, I think we should get out of here before something shows up." Ellis gave a nervous laugh.

"That's probably a good idea." I replied and began walking down the stairs, eager to be away from the carnage upstairs.

I walked outside and looked up at the sky, wondering why there weren't any children around for the apocalypse. Were thet all dead? Evacuated? Maybe they'd all been evacuated first so that they could help rebuild the population when they were orlder, maybe they were being tested for a cure.

The others joined me outside and Ricky patted me on the back, seeing that I was still a bit shaken up from the sight of the two dead girls.

"You gonna be ok man?" Ellis looked concerned.

"Yeah, it's just seeing the bodies of kids made me wonder, what happened to the rest of them?"

"Probably got on the first chopper out of here and are kicking back at some paradise away from this shit." Laughed Kyle, he didn't look so pale anymore, although his eyes showed a lot of pain and sorrow.

"Yeah, surfing and chasing each other round the beach." I smiled, the thought of there being a place that was void of Green flu seemed impossible, the virus was everywhere! No matter how far we ran, how far we went, the damn thing followed us like a ghost, haunting us until we died too.

"Well I bet soon, we'll be kicking back on a beach or something too! Who knows? We might even find Francis, Louis and Zoey again! Ellis would love that wouldn't you?" Rachel smirked, pointing a taunting finger at Ellis, who blushed and mumbled

"She was beautiful though."

"All right then, let's keep moving so we can find this paradise of yours Rachel." Johnny smiled at all of us and then checked his ammo before looking at me seriously.

"Where to now then boss?"

"Hmm, well Londons to the south I think, so let's head there and see if the military acctually exists anymore."

We spent the rest of the day trekking south, toward hopefully, our salvation.

There were lots of infected in the countryside, when I pointed this out, Rachel explained that it was probably because there was no food left in the city so all the infected were moving out to find food.

"so they don't realise that we're human and will gladly rip us to shreds, but they're smart enough to figure out that they need to go somewhere else to find food?" I laughed in disbelief, it seemed like something out of a bad horror movie, the zombies following the survivors and eventually overwhelming them. Of course, we were different. We had the firepower to take them on, the awesomeness of teamwork, and of course, the sheer WILL to live through this.

We ended up sprinting for our lives when Kyle shot a boomer, who proceeded to stumble and explode right next to a car, causing the alarm to go off and a horde plus a tank to come out of nowhere and attack us.

We stumbled into the safehouse and I slammed the door shut, making sure it was secure as the infected tried to reach through the bars and the tank simply punched at the door, trying to get in. I took the time to really study the tanks face.

The skin was stretched tightly over its face, obviously a sign of the mutation. The eyes were sunk low into the skull and were jet black, the dark orbs boring into mine as I realised that the tank was just standing there, watching me. There was no doubt in my mind that he would rip me to pieces if I opened the door. I continued watching him, taking note of a big chunk missing from his chest, hinting that he had attacked someone but killed them before they did too much damage. The muscles on his arms were lumpy and deformed, clearly the virus wasnt very careful about what it did to the host. His legs were wobbling slightly, the weight of his body must have almost been too much. His lower jaw was sunk into his chest muscle, leaving his tongue lolling about on his torso. There was no hair on his head at all, it must have fallen out as a side effect of the virus.

I heard a snort and looked up, only to jump backwards when I saw that my face was right next to the safe house bars and the tank was breathing through them, his dead eyes boring into mine. I suddenly thought why am I calling it a he? If I start calling the infected hes and shes, I might not be able to kill them because I'd start thinking of them as human again.

Regaining my composure, I slowly raised my M-16 and, with a slight feeling of guilt, began unloading the bullets into the tank. IT, almost whimpered and began to charge away, that was the first and only time I ever saw a tank run away.

"Did that thing just run away?" Johnny asked in disbelief, pointing out the door at the still retreating tank.

"Yeah, I looked at it and started shooting and it didn't even attack, just ran."

"That's not like a tank. What next? Witches offering hugs?" Johnny chuckled and walked over to the fridge in the kitchen area, pulling out a bottle of water and drinking half of it all at once.

After a meal of chips and chocolate (good thing we had the running to keep us in shape!) I sat in one of the bedrooms and pulled out my rucksack, going through it for the first time since we'd left Johnnys house what seemed like years ago.

After I had sifted through all the first aid, weapons and ammo, I found some things I was glad to have with me.

I found the knife my dad gave me when I was 10, along with a holster for my leg, I put it on and slid the knife in, hoping it would save me and friends from harm.

I found a family portrait from our trip to Venice, we were all at the edge of a river, smiling and trying not to fall in. We all looked so happy that I suddenly felt tears in my eyes and wiped them away quickly.

The last thing I found was a charger (Not the zombie) and underneath that, my ipod!

I put the headphones in, put it on shuffle and pressed play. The first song that came on was Three Days Grace, Animal I Have Become. I thought it fitted my situation well, if my parents could see me now what woud they think? I was a killer. Sure, the infected were barely human, but I was still a cold blooded killer and I hated it, I just wanted life back to normal. Mum cooking while dad laughed at the rubbish on the news, my little sister running around with her toy horses and my big brother just sitting around with his phone out, texting all his friends.

I sighed and laid back on my bed, and this time I couldn't hold the tears back. I thought to myself 'What are the others gonna say when they see me like this?' The question was answered when the door opened and Rachel came in, she had a small smile on her face and when she saw me sit up, still silently crying, she didn't say anything, just sat next to me and wrapped her arms around me. I couldn't reply, just hug her back and sob weakly into her shoulder.

"It's gonna be all right Sam."

"How do you know? What are we fighting for? Every rescue we've had has failed and we ended up running again. My parents are probavly dead and we all will be soon too." I choked out.

"No we're not! And you know why? Because we look out for own."

I smiled weakly at her and wiped my eyes hurriedly, getting rid of the rest of the tears.

"Tell the others I cried, I'll kill you." I laughed when she punched me on the arm playfully.

"Good to have you back boss."

We spent the rest of the night just talking about what we missed from home, and then I had to comfort Rachel when the memories of Ted came back and I had to stop myself choking up again.

The next morning, I woke up and gently shook Rachel awake, telling her we had to leave soon. She grumbled and said she'd be there in a minute, but she'd kill for a shower. I know how she felt, being covered in blood and various other substances wasn't exactly pleasant.

After a fancy breakfast of bread and water (We ate like kings!) we set out again, determined to get at least 10 miles closer to London and safety. Before we left though, we all rechecked ammo and first aid kits, I made sure everything in my bag was good and had to resist the temptation to listen to my ipod, telling myself that if I did, I wouldnt be able to hear the infected and get myself, or all of us, killed.

"Everyone ready?" Ricky had let his arm heal and could use it fine now, though there was sure to be a scar of the shotgun blast.

"Yep, let's do this thing!" Shouted Kyle, he'd been arguing with Johnny, convinced that he didn't snore until we all shouted that he did and usually kept us up.

I unsheathed my katana and slowly opened the saferoom door. There weren't many infected around, which seemed odd since we'd attracted tons getting there last night.

"Where are you, you sneaky bastards?" I hissed at the empty area around me.

Then all hell broke loose.

Three, yes three, hunters leapt out of nowhere and a spitter/smoker combo crashed into the area. As the first hunter leapt for me, I ducked to the left swinging my sword, smirking when I heard the hunters shriek of pain. I ran over to its twitching body and slit its throat, it gurgled slightly and lay still. Rachel shot the second hunter as it jumped toward Ricky. It yelped and fell to the floor with a bullet hole in its head. As the others took care of the smoker constricting Ellis, the spitter screamed at me and sent the little ball of pain towards me. It exploded at my feet and when I jumped backward, the hunter jumped forward, landing directly in the acid. I watched as it writhed and screamed in pain while the acid tore away its flesh. I smirked when I realised that I had my hate for the zombies back.

When the inevitable horde showed up, I relished in the rage that flowed through me and the blood that coated my blade. The last zombie was a teenage boy who acctually seemed to have some sense, as I swung at his head, he ducked! I spun around and sliced the back of his kneecaps, as he fell down, I turned again and stabbed him in the chest.

"Wow, someones a ninja!" Exclaimed Ricky, he was grinning and poking the dead zombie with his foot.

"Hell yeah! I'll backflip a tank and roundhouse kick a witch later." I grinned back.

"I'm holding you to that last one."

We started walking and soon came to a small abandoned shop on the left of the street. It had been ransacked, the windows smashed and the door knocked off it's hinges. There was blood smeared all over the walls and dead bodies half in and half out of the smashed windows.

I walked slowly over to it and recoiled when I saw a glint in the far corner.

There was a single gunshot.


End file.
